Skully begins with a skull washing up on an island and being placed in a seemingly-magical clay pit, where it awakens as a reanimated skull able to roll around and jump. In this way, you begin to traverse the island, collecting little yellow flowers as you go. Soon you encounter a deity named Terry, who was responsible for your revival.
Although Terry is initially dismayed that you’re only a skull, he decides he’ll work with what he has and dubs you “Skully.” He reanimated Skully in order to help resolve a dispute between his siblings, whose conflict has thrown the island into chaos. Now with Terry guiding you, you set off to find the first of his siblings in the hopes of bringing an end to their troubles. There isn’t a lot of dialogue (especially since Skully can’t talk), but Terry provides commentary as you travel that both expands the story and provides some humor.
It’s a 3D platformer, and although Skully’s speed sometimes makes it tricky not to overshoot jumps, it’s generally very smooth and easy to control. In addition to rolling and jumping, Skully can also cling to mossy patches in order to climb up or travel across walls. The two levels in the preview build are mostly linear, but with little side paths, you can find if you want to collect all of the flowers. These collectibles don’t seem to have any gameplay purpose, but instead, unlock concept art after you reach certain thresholds. It’s a nice little reward for a thorough exploration.
Water is deadly to Skully, and since you’re on an island, that means there’s danger everywhere. Falling into the water rapidly drains your health and can easily kill you. Fortunately, the frequent clay pits you cross serve as both checkpoints and healing spots. If you die, you’ll respawn at the last one you touched, and you also can submerge yourself in the clay to restore health. Early on in the second level, you come across a new use for them as well, when a glowing clay pit transforms Skully into a golem-like form with the skull safely contained inside.
This new form is slower and can’t jump very high, but has the strength to punch through obstacles and attack the water-based enemies you begin to encounter. If you reach a point more suited toward the skull’s abilities, the golem form can spit out Skully to give you control of his skull form again and then take him back if you decide you stick with the stronger form after all. Sometimes, however, you’re forced to split up and travel as a skull again, but the strong form can be summoned at any clay pit. Whenever I had multiple strong forms summoned at the same time, health indicators for all of them appeared on the screen. I found no way to make use of this in gameplay, but it might be something that comes into play later on.
Switching between forms felt good and made exploration much more interesting. The full game will have two more transformations as well, so it will be interesting to see how all of them work together and what new mechanics are introduced.
Overall, Skully is fun to play, and the world is beautiful. The only off-putting part of the preview build was the way cinematics are presented, as the opening scene and Terry’s introduction both use still images shown one after the other to suggest movement. Considering the game’s use of clay, this might be intended as a claymation approach, but it felt strange in contrast to the smooth animations in the gameplay itself. Nevertheless, that’s a small nitpick in what has the potential to be a fun and entertaining 3D platformer adventure. Skully will be out for the PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on August 4.
